Interesting comment given that you predict Mao coming 4th. There is NO way Mao with even a "good" skate will be 4th in this field. In fact I will say for certain there is no way with a good skate she will be any lower than 2nd. Suzuki, Korpi, and the Russians cant beat even a good Mao right now, let alone a great one. The GP final made it clear who the JSF favors, if Mao produces a clean short with a triple-double and even 5 triples in the LP, Suzuki has no chance to beat her even if she skates lights out in both programs. Who knows if Wagner could even beat a 5 triple Mao or not, her quality marks will likely be the highest in this particular group.

V/T will step onto the ice and on top of the podium in the same moment.

Reminder of the asterisk to last year's GPF:
As the ISU later acknowledged, Virtue/Moir's GPF FD should have beaten Davis/White's. Because of a calculation error, V/M were not credited with the full number of points that one of their lifts deserved.
But Davis/White still would have won the gold even without the error.

Takahashi will not have a WTT level skate because that was an one quad LP. This time he has a two quads with one in combo LP. We haven't seen him skate it clean yet so far. Very likely he will under rotate, two footed, or fall on a quad or two.

Chan might double some jumps again if not fall. It seems his new strategy this season to double the jumps instead of fall/falls.

Hanyu won't be clean in his LP. But Hanyu is capable of having another near world record SP. The LP might be Chan's to lose.

Kozuka is likely to save his SOHL at the time of the Worlds. Unless he changes his strategy from two quads LP to one quad LP, he is not going to skate clean in LP.

Fenandez is a little like a headcase and seems an early season skater. He might not skate as great as he did at SC.

Machida might be the only one who could skate clean in both SP and LP.

All of them are packaging their programs technically touching or exceeding their own abilities. There is a good chance that none of them has a clean competition. Also, there is a chance for some of these skaters to adopt Chan's method in doubling the jumps instead of fall/falls. They might learn from Chan as quickly as some of them have adopted his 3Lz-1Lo-3S. I'm not going to predict the placement because I'm not good at it.

I saw the link given by yude, and this is what Brian Orser said about Hanyu: “Thinking of Japanese Nationals is more important. I would really enjoy in between GPF and Nationals, in Toronto we'll have amazing works.”

I’m confused. It looks like Orser definitely thinks he’ll help Hanyu prepare for the JN in 2 weeks in Toronto between GPF and JN, then it’s also 2 weeks between NHK and GPF and shouldn’t Hanyu also going to Toronto to prepare for the GPF? If it’s for the jet lag thing mentioned by some posters, then after GPF Hanyu will fly from Sochi to Toronto and then to Japan-it’s worse.

Why the different approaches before GPF and JN? Could it be Orser is giving up on GPF and skip to JN? or JN is more difficult that Hanyu thinks he can’t make the top three? I don’t know what to think if Hanyu stays in Sendai and not go to Toronto to prepare for GPF just because he has to take exams. He has a good chance of medal or even gold at GPF if he prepares well for it. To give away the chance for the exam is If I were him I wouldn’t do that.

Which exams are they? Are they ones that are critical to his whole future after skating? He is 17, almost 18. Could be like college entrance exams or something (I really don't know how that works in Japan).

I don’t know if it may help but in this Yuzu’s NHK FS YTvideo http://www.youtube.com/all_comments?v=WLg1FxmhyNw a viewer translated the interview to italian language. The viewer translated “ ora vuole continuare ad allenarsi lì a Sendai” which literally means “ now (Yuzu) wants to continue his training here in Sendai.” Is it correct?

I don’t know if it may help but in this Yuzu’s NHK FS YTvideo http://www.youtube.com/all_comments?v=WLg1FxmhyNw a viewer translated the interview to italian language. The viewer translated “ ora vuole continuare ad allenarsi lì a Sendai” which literally means “ now (Yuzu) wants to continue his training here in Sendai.” Is it correct?

thanks in advance

What Yuzuru said at the end was: "ato ha mata modotte renshu shitaina to omotte imasu"
ie After this I want to return (where? not clear) and practise.
He certainly didn't say in this clip that he wanted to CONTINUE practising HERE IN SENDAI.